


Coffee and Cigarettes

by Garonne



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:05:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/pseuds/Garonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hathaway is mad about Lewis, but sometimes he feels like he's trying to balance on a knife-edge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee and Cigarettes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Lewis Lyric Wheel on livejournal, and xfdryad's suggestion _Black Coffee_ , by Ella Fitzgerald.

.. .. ..

Hathaway stood by Lewis' front door, patting his pockets to verify the presence of his keys, wallet, and blackberry. He wondered how many of the neighbours had noticed that the grey Peugeot now spent the night in Lewis' driveway more often than not, instead of turning up early in the morning.

Lewis was coming down the hallway, looping a boring maroon tie around his neck. He stopped by the door to give Hathaway one last peck on the lips before they left for work. Hathaway never felt that that one miserly kiss would be enough to get him through the day till the evening. He slid his arms around Lewis, squeezing until Lewis started to make noises about what time it was. 

Lewis was like that, practical. His mind was certainly already on the long day they had ahead of them, on their case and their mile-long to-do list. 

"Let's take the Vauxhall," he said, probably thinking of fuel efficiency and the four-hour drive to Hull which lay ahead of them. "Do you want to drive up or back?"

"Up," said Hathaway at random. "What?" he added, because Lewis was grinning.

"Nothing. I was thinking of Morse. I always manoeuvred him into driving on the way out, on long journeys like this. They usually involved a tour of the local pubs, you see."

Hathaway imagined a young Lewis fussing like a mother hen over his inspector. He was jealous of Morse -- jealous in fact of anyone who knew Lewis in the lost years before Hathaway met him.

They left the house, but Lewis stopped dead in the driveway. "Forgot my clean shirt. We said your flat for tonight, didn't we?"

Hathaway got into the car to wait. He thought about where it would be convenient to top up the petrol tank on the way out of Oxford. His mind soon wandered on to other things. It was a pity they could drive to Hull and back in a day, really. It would have been a novel experience to stay in a hotel together. He wondered if Lewis would still consider them to be "at work" all night, just because the taxpayer was footing the hotel bill. He flicked absently through the pile of files on his lap, thinking he could probably have enticed Lewis into his hotel bed.

In fact, Lewis would be in Hathaway's bed tonight in any case. In Hathaway's flat, though, and they'd certainly both be knackered after a long day. _Same old same old,_ he thought, watching the front door open out of the corner of his eye. He craved a day away with Lewis, a night in the Cotswolds or in Brighton or somewhere.

He saw Lewis come back down the path, carrying a plastic bag with his shirt in. Lewis had a deep crease between his eyes, and his mouth was scrunched up a bit, as always when he was deep in thought. It was that thoughtful look that always made Hathaway want to kiss him. Not unlike the rest of Lewis' expressions, in fact.

Lewis smiled when he caught Hathaway's eye through the car window.

"Got the phone numbers?" he asked as he climbed in. He picked up the pile of cardboard folders Hathaway had on his lap.

"Green folder." Hathaway pulled out of the driveway. "I phoned Humberside police before we left work last night. They're expecting us this morning."

They had been working on this case for over twenty-four hours already, but those leads which they could follow up locally, in Oxford, had very quickly dried up. Now they were turning their attention further afield.

The victim was a thirty-five-year-old woman, found dead in the driver's seat of her car, in a service station carpark on the Northern Bypass the previous morning. Her driving licence quickly established her name and an address in Hull. Her handbag also contained a swipe card for a Housing Benefits Office, who confirmed that she left work at the usual hour the evening before her death.

What she was doing in Oxford remained a mystery, however, as did why someone in the passenger seat of her car had hit her over the head at around four o'clock in the morning.

"Humberside uniform are supposed to be going round her neighbours this morning," said Hathaway.

"Next stop after the home address should be her colleagues, then."

Hathaway had his own ideas about how their day should be organised, but he held his tongue. He had been making a valiant attempt to transform himself into an exemplary, obedient sergeant, ever since that exchange of looks a month before that saw them wind up in Lewis' bed.

.. .. ..

Four hours later they were letting themselves into a one-up-one-down redbrick in the north of Hull. It was almost midday, and the light filtering in through immaculate white net-curtains revealed a small front room, furnishings shabby but spotless, all seventies wallpaper and heavy mahogany furniture. The only things out of place were a cordless telephone and a half-drunk cup of some grey-white liquid, lying on the table by the armchair.

Hathaway went over to investigate. "Looks like she left in a hurry. After receiving a phone call, perhaps." He tried to check the phone's memory, but the battery was dead.

Lewis picked up the cup and swirled the contents round. "Left fairly late in the day too, probably. Which would fit with her using her debit card on the M18 at midnight."

"How's that?"

"It's Horlicks. Not something you generally drink early in the day, is it?"

Hathaway smirked. "Always had you down as a Horlicks man, sir. Goes with your woolly bedsocks."

As he'd hoped and expected, Lewis gave him a Look. Sometimes Hathaway wished he could capture and somehow bottle that mixture of exasperation and affection.

In the kitchen there were further signs of admirable housekeeping and a hurried departure. Upstairs, in the smaller bedroom everything was made up, and it was impossible to tell the last time the room had held a guest. In the larger bedroom, clothes were strewn on the bed as though someone had packed a suitcase in a hurry. 

Hathaway stepped into the bathroom.

"If she had a man in her life, he wasn't a regular visitor," he called, thinking of his own toothbrush in Lewis' toothmug, hundreds of miles away.

Lewis appeared in the bathroom door. "I bet this was once the third bedroom, and the loo was outside," he said, apropos of nothing.

"Oh?" said Hathaway, not seeing what that could possibly have to do with the case.

Lewis had moved to the window. "Mm, look, you can still see the outhouse at the bottom of the backyard." He turned, and caught Hathaway's puzzled look. "I grew up in a house just like this."

Hathaway perked up. He was always avid for any small fact Lewis let drop about himself. He didn't have nearly enough of them, and he hoarded them up like treasure. He hoped he could provoke Lewis to more today.

"After bathroom conversion, I hope?"

Lewis snorted. "You've got a funny idea of Newcastle in the sixties. It wasn't the Dark Ages, you know."

Hathaway imagined a tiny Lewis in a little redbrick house opening onto the pavement, imagined him playing football on the street and refusing to eat his greens. He wondered whether he was called Robbie or Bobbie.

"Bedrooms once more?" said Lewis. "Then we can drop the key back at the station after lunch."

.. .. ..

They had lunch in a pub near the estuary. Lewis had mushroom soup, in accordance with the new diet Lyn had him on. Hathaway ordered the same thing in solidarity, earning him another exasperated look from Lewis. They talked about the case - what little there was to talk about. Hathaway was already beginning to feel in his gut that this would turn into one of those frustrating cases that petered out and got filed away under 'Awaiting new leads'.

"There're still her phone records," he said.

Lewis grunted.

Towards the end of the meal they fell silent. Lewis was gazing abstractedly at the menu propped up between the salt and the pepper, the way you might at a cereal packet you'd already read a hundred times. His eyes were soft and unfocussed, and Hathaway added another shade of blue to the library of memories he was building up inside his head.

He put down his cutlery and said suddenly, "Let's go away somewhere."

Lewis' forehead crinkled. "What, now?"

"No, I mean away as in -- away for a day or two. Just, I don't know, a night to ourselves -- together. No work the next day."

He felt silly, childish, saying it. As if they weren't together all the time anyway. Lewis' face creased into a smile, though.

"Yeah, I'd like that too," he said.

Hathaway allowed himself an answering smile. "Even if it's just Stow-on-the-Wold or somewhere."

"I've never been," said Lewis.

Hathaway looked back down at his soup, suddenly feeling unaccountably happy.

.. .. ..

The afternoon brought nothing new. The only help the victim's colleagues could offer was to say that she had seemed perfectly normal throughout her last day at work. They left the house-key back at the local station, and picked up a stack of photocopies put together by one of the sergeants there.

"There's really nothing much in it," he said, "but I've put the most interesting ones at the top. Oh, and someone in Oxford faxed you the victim's phone records."

Lewis took the sheets of paper. "She didn't receive a phone call on the night she left Hull - she made one."

"To whom?"

Lewis was grimacing. "The speaking clock."

They put together a list of possible leads that ultimately led nowhere - the man who ran the weekly book club she'd attended didn't seem to know her very well, and the only relative she'd had in Hull turned out to be on holidays in New Zealand. They still ended up leaving for Oxford several hours later than originally intended, though.

Lewis insisted on driving on the way back down, despite the yawns he was having trouble suppressing. Sometimes Hathaway suspected Lewis pushed himself further than he ought to, not wanting to remind Hathaway of his age. As if that mattered.

Lewis drove with grim determination, until Hathaway pretended to be in need of a pee. He didn't want to suggest that Lewis might be tired, and risk rekindling the almost-an-argument they'd had when they'd got lost on the way out of Hull. 

They stopped at a service station on the M1, just south of Leicester. Hathaway got two measly-sized cups of coffee from the machine and brought them to where Lewis was sitting at a melamine-covered table. He was wary. He hadn't minded bickering with Lewis before, but it was different now. Now, he wanted everything to be perfect between them. He was terrified of somehow messing things up.

Lewis sat glowering into his polystyrene cup of coffee. He looked grumpy, probably because he was tired and because he hated enquiries that petered out and turned into cold cases, left on the shelf for years. More prosaically, he was grumpy because they'd spent half an hour in a traffic jam because of a pile-up near Doncaster.

"I did suggest the A46, sir," Hathaway said.

"Because you always know best, of course." Lewis' tone was unexpectedly harsh. 

Hathaway answered more sharply than he had intended, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. It's not even true anyway. Not these last few weeks. Where's the spark we used to have, eh?"

Hathaway hesitated, feeling his heart starting to beat in disproportionate panic. "Spark?" He thought Lewis was talking about fancying him -- or rather, not fancying him any more.

"Yeah, you know, the spark of life, of -- whatever." Lewis gestured sharply with his free hand, trying to get the point across. "If we have the best closure rate in the force, it's because you never hesitate to challenge me, to trip me up, to call me out. Or you usen't to, I should say."

Hathaway knew he should say something rational and sensible about the incompatibility of sex and a professional hierarchical relationship. But something in Lewis' tone needled him, and he was tired and grumpy too, and he snapped back, "You think it's easy, treading the narrow line between insubordination and submission? You know what someone who knew us would say, right? Someone who knew everything? That you let me get away with murder in return for a good shag every Friday night."

Lewis' cheeks turned an angry red. "You know bloody well that's not how things are."

"How it looks, though, isn't it? And it's a risk, you have to admit."

"It is not! As if you or I would ever -- " He shook his head in disgust. "You don't trust us, do you?"

Hathaway stiffened. "Just because I'm being realistic, and you don't want to be -- "

" -- says the man who believes in miracles."

"I thought I was the man who always knew best?"

"And I thought you were supposed to be here for a pee," Lewis threw back at him. "As if I believed that for an instant, anyway. Couldn't just tell me I was too tired to drive, eh?"

Hathaway shot him a mutinous look, and stalked off in the direction of the toilets.

.. .. ..

Out in the carpark, beyond the petrol pumps, Hathaway dragged viciously on his cigarette. In the distance, the motorway was a muted rumble and an irregular stream of lights. It was one o'clock in the morning, and the carpark was almost deserted. The empty petrol-station forecourt was lit in harsh, impersonal white light. Hathaway stood in a patch of darkness beyond it, which went well with the cold, nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach. So what he'd been dreading had finally arrived.

He heard footsteps behind him and recognised the rhythm without needing to turn his head.

"There you are," said Lewis, appearing at his elbow. "Ready to go?" His tone was light.

Hathaway looked at him sideways, uncertain.

Lewis picked up on Hathaway's mood and his expression changed. "Still cross at me?"

"It's you who ought to be still angry with me. I said things I wish I hadn't." He blew smoke away from Lewis, frowning out into the darkness.

To his amazement, Lewis laughed. "Don't let's make a mountain out of a molehill."

Hathaway looked around and caught Lewis' eye. Lewis was smiling at him, the skin around his eyes crinkled up with affection.

"You'd rather drown your feelings in coffee and cigarettes, is that it? Sometimes it's better to clear the air, you know." His voice softened. "Val and I used to fight like that all the time. Over nothing at all -- over everything. It doesn't do to make a big thing out of it." 

They stood side by side, looking out into the darkness. After a while, Hathaway felt a hand on his arm. He covered it with his own, stepping closer to Lewis so that they were pressed together. Lewis was a warm, comfortable presence at his side, and Hathaway felt like he'd been freed from a load that had been weighing him down for weeks.

Lewis gave his arm a squeeze. "Come on then, give us a kiss and let's go home."

.. .. ..

End

.. .. ..

**Author's Note:**

> One line adapted from Ella Fitzgerald's _Black Coffee_.


End file.
